She fiddled with the chopsticks in her hand, moving them between her fingers, rubbing them together, clicking the tips of them against her napkin.
Doing everything but eating the sushi on the plate in front of her.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked. They were in the Bunker, and the rest of the team was off and away, leaving just the two of them working late.
She jumped at his question. “What? Oh, nothing.”
His eyebrows lowered. “Felicity.”
She glanced up, and then back down at her plate. “I’m always uncomfortable with chopsticks. I mean, I know how to use them.” Her mouth quirked and her eyes went sideways as a thought occurred to her. “Actually, I know how to use them to take someone out if we were attacked.”
“I know.” He almost smiled. “I taught you that.”
“Did you know that in Japan they don’t use chopsticks to eat sushi?”
“They don’t use them to take people out, either.”
Now he did smile. “That’s not true. Where do you think I learned how to do it?”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure you’re actually joking.”
“I am,” he said. “I learned the chopstick technique in Russia.”
“Let me get this straight, Oliver Queen.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “You’re telling me the criminal underworld in Russia eats sushi?”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice to match hers.
“They love it. Sushi and vodka.”
She sat back and made a face. “Ugh, now you’ve ruined it for me.”
He laughed loudly and smiled widely, enjoying the banter. It had been far too long since he and Felicity had dinner alone. Most meals were captured things, food eaten between other activities, not something to be enjoyed.
This, tonight, felt strange in its normality.
“Would you like to order something else?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, but I will not be having any vodka.” She placed her chopsticks on the napkin. “And I am eating this the traditional way.” She picked up a piece of sushi between her fingers, and popped it into her mouth.
“Why, Miss Smoak, I think you have that technique down.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Queen.”
“Please, no need to be so formal. Call me Mayor Queen.”
The laugh burst out of her, taking her whole face.
“You truly are stunning,” he said.
The seriousness of his tone stopped her short. The mood between them shifted, going from light and cheer-filled to something, not exactly darker, but weighted with potential. Her hands touched her dress, fluttering under the intensity of his gaze.
“It’s new.”
“Not the dress,” he said flatly. “It is lovely, but I meant what I said. You are stunning.”
Her cheeks grew warm but she held his gaze, unable to turn from it, unwilling to break that connection.
“You clean up pretty good yourself.”
The Bunker fell away, leaving nothing but the two of them and their history together. The tangled and complicated story of them that tied the two together and kept them apart, things that had been done, things that had been said, things that had been forgiven, and things that didn’t need to be. Tonight they were something neither of them had experienced before.
They say the words “once in a lifetime” so easily, he thought.
“Oliver,” she murmured, her voice filled with affection.
“Felicity.”
The sharp chime of his phone split the moment like an ax through bone. The magic siphoned away as he reached for it, leaving them both awkward and emotionally raw. Unable to resist, he read the text.
She watched his face and recognized the look on it.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” He drew away, the moment completely gone. “It’s William.”
* * *
She met him at the door with her things bundled in her arms.
“I mean it this time, Mr. Queen. I am done. Don’t even try to talk me out of it. It won’t work this time.”
Behind her the apartment was a wreck. His eyes picked out the path of violence. It started on the couch and moved around the living room, into the kitchen, down the hall where he couldn’t see it anymore. Pictures on the wall were askew, things knocked off tables and shelves. A shoe lay on the floor by the table, a book near the kitchen counter. The rug had been kicked up and now lay in a bundle instead of being flat on the floor.
“Is William okay?”
The three words came out as a threat.
Shondra took a step back.
“He’s fine, physically,” she said. “But he still needs a lot of help.”
Relief flooded him, washing through his chest like cold water. He didn’t even realize how much tension had built inside him, like pressure in a glass bubble. So much that the thing containing it had begun to crack and splinter.
“I’ll find him help.” The door still open, he motioned toward the hall. “You may go.”
“I won’t be back.” She said it with defiance and slight anger mixed, he thought, with embarrassment. He was the mayor, there was no reason to be scared of the mayor.
“No, you won’t.” Oliver guided her with a sweep of his hand. She stepped over the threshold and turned, mouth open to say something.
He shut the door firmly in her face.
She was gone from his mind the second he stepped away from the door. He shook off his suit jacket, laying it over the end of the couch, then stepped over a broken plate containing the remains of someone’s—probably William’s—dinner mixed with shards of shattered porcelain. Squaring his shoulders he moved toward his son’s room.
The door was shut again.
He knocked softly and turned the knob. Pushing the door open gently, he tensed, waiting for some thrown projectile to smash against it.
Nothing happened.
The door opened to a room that looked almost normal. Based on the rest of the apartment, he had anticipated some destruction. William’s room looked just as it had when he’d left this morning, the bed slightly more rumpled, a few action figures and other assorted things in different places but, on first glance, fundamentally the same.
His son was nowhere to be seen.
“William.” He stepped into the room, eyes scanning.
His voice was the only sound. The covers on the bed revealed that William wasn’t under there. The closet door yawed open, showing the jumble of shoes and boxes that lived there at the moment. There wasn’t enough room in there, unless William could fold himself into a tiny square that didn’t breathe.
He leaned over, peering into the small gap between the matched set of dressers. William could fit there, hidden almost perfectly.
It was empty.
A noise from outside the room made him step back into the hall.
It wasn’t a sob, not strong enough for that, not sharp enough for that. It was smaller, quicker. A hitch of breath, a brief—so brief—little strangle of noise. Frowning, he moved down the hall to the bathroom. It was a small room, all white tile with a blue accent that surrounded the sink, toilet, and tub. The shower curtain was closed, but it moved, just slightly, and there was a dark shadow inside it.
What should I do? he thought.
If only he’d brought Felicity with him. She was awkward with people sometimes, but her good-heartedness would’ve shone through, would have set William at ease.
Oliver didn’t have a good heart to shine through. He had made himself a vessel of violence, of vengeance. But a traumatized boy, his traumatized son, couldn’t be dealt with using fists and arrows and brutality.
He wished for Thea.
His sister would’ve had William comfortable in moments. But Thea wasn’t here, couldn’t be here.
He was.
He was here with his son.
Oliver knelt on the tile next to the shower. He didn’t say anything, simply stayed, letting his presence fill the space, waiting to see if William would acknowledge it. After many long moments, the form shifted inside the tub, moving just enough to make the vinyl curtain rustle.
“When I was your age I used to have a space in the kitchen.” He lowered his face closer to the shower curtain, his voice even, almost monotone, as he tried to speak gently. “A cupboard that everyone had forgotten about. When I found it the only things inside were dozens of jars of something that looked like mint jelly and two dented cans with no labels. It was small, not much bigger than I was.” He swallowed his discomfort, not knowing where his confession was going, just working off feeling. “It was dark but I liked that. It was my place. I was safe there because no one could find me—they didn’t know where I was. It was my hiding place.”
“I’m not hiding.” William’s voice was quiet, but the bitterness still cut through.
Gently, Oliver nudged the curtain open. William lay in the bottom of the tub on his back, eyes closed. His hair was plastered to his forehead with dampness, but otherwise he looked as if he were simply sleeping.
“What are you doing then?”
It took a long time for William to answer.
“Being alone.”
He didn’t open his eyes.